Argument
From Abstraction: The Teleological Case for Supra-sensible Entities

Knowledge
of a transcendant, supra-sensible realm is made possible by man's
innate cognitive power of abstraction. Abstraction is the ability
to observe the sensible world and extrapolate from it universal principles.
In Summa Theologiae, Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas explains
abstraction:

Our
intellect cannot know the singular in material things directly and
primarily. The reason for this is that the principle of singularity
in material things is individual matter; whereas our intellect understands
by abstracting the intelligible species from such matter. Now what
is abstracted from individual matter is universal. Hence our intellect
knows directly only universals. But indirectly, however, and as
it were by a kind of reflexion, it can know the singular, because.
. .even after abstracting the intelligible species, the intellect,
in order to understand actually, needs to turn to the phantasms
in which it understands the species� Therefore it understands the
universal directly through the intelligible species, and indirectly
the singular represented by the phantasm. And thus it forms the
proposition, "Socrates is a man." (Pt. I, Qu. 86, Art. I)

This
argument reiterates the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:20:

For
the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal
power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

Through
abstraction, Paul recognizes the intrinsic finality of creation. Sensible
objects gesticulate toward universal principles. Although these principles
are inherently intangible, they find tangible expression when applied
to corporeality. In turn, these universal principles gesticulate toward
a universal Creator. The axiomatic nature of such finality leaves
man with no excuse for doubt and unbelief. This argument is teleological.
That is, it recognizes a directive principle intrinsic to nature.

In
Confession of Nature, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz uses abstraction
to establish the centrality of a supra-sensible God to the temporal
spatial universe. According to Leibniz, the proximate origins of "magnitude,
figure, and motion," which constitute the "primary qualities" of corporeal
bodies, "cannot be found in the essence of the body" (de Hoyos). Linda
de Hoyos reveals the point at which science finds a dilemma:

The
problem arises when the scientist asks why the body fills this space
and not another; for example, why it should be three feet long rather
than two, or square rather than round. This cannot be explained
by the nature of the bodies themselves, since the matter is indeterminate
as to any definite figure, whether square or round. For the scientist
who refuses to resort to an incorporeal cause, there can be only
two answers. Either
the body has been this way since eternity, or it has been made square
by the impact of another body. "Eternity" is no answer, since the
body could have been round for eternity also. If the answer is "the
impact of another body," there remains the question of why it should
have had any determinate figure before such motion acted upon it.
This question can then be asked again and again, backwards to infinity.
Therefore,
it appears that the reason for a certain figure and magnitude in
bodies can never be found in the nature of these bodies themselves.
(No pagination)

The
same can be established for the body's cohesion and firmness, which
left Leibniz with the following conclusion:

Since
we have demonstrated that bodies cannot have a determinate figure,
quantity, or motion, without an incorporeal being, it readily becomes
apparent that this incorporeal being is one for all, because of
the harmony of things among themselves, especially since bodies
are moved not individually by this incorporeal being but by each
other. But no reason can be given why this incorporeal being chooses
one magnitude, figure, and motion rather than another, unless he
is intelligent and wise with regard to the beauty of things and
powerful with regard to their obedience to their command. Therefore
such an incorporeal being be a mind ruling the whole world, that
is, God. (de Hoyos, no pagination)

This
argument refutes the scientistic claim that the physical universe
constitutes the "totality of reality." In fact, the ontological plane
of the physical universe cannot be considered a per se subsistent
form of substance. It is underpinned by an immaterial order. The manifestation
of sensible objects within corporeality is the result of the unseen
interchange of transcendant principles outside of the temporal spatial
realm. Rene
Guenon recapitulates:

The
truth is that the corporeal world cannot be regarded as being a
whole sufficient to itself, nor as being isolated from the totality
of universal manifestation: on the contrary, whatever the present
state of things may look like as a result of "solidification," the
corporeal world proceeds entirely from the subtle order, in which
it can be said to have its immediate principle, and through that
order as intermediary it is attached successively to formless manifestation
and finally to the non-manifested. If it were not so, its existence
could be nothing but a pure illusion, a sort of fantasmagoria behind
which there would be nothing at all, which amounts to saying that
it would not really exist in any way. That being the case, there
cannot be anything in the corporeal world such that its existence
does not depend directly on elements belonging to the subtle order,
and beyond them, on some principle that can be called "spiritual,"
for without the latter no manifestation of any kind is possible,
on any level whatsoever. (213-14)

Although
the transcendant principles discerned through abstraction are not
quantifiably demonstrable, they do find tangible expression in their
practical application. For instance, the principles of geometry are
actuated through architecture.

Although
geometry makes possible the quantification of certain physical entities,
its principles did not stem from any previous system of empirical
measurement. Instead, they stem from man's abstraction of the subtle,
incorporeal order from the temporal spatial realm. To assert otherwise
is to ontologically sever humanity from its true source of knowledge.

The
Modern Mythmakers

Of
course, scientific materialists would love to believe otherwise. According
to the modern theory of Darwinism, living matter willed itself into
existence out of non-living matter. This notion, dubbed "spontaneous
generation," excludes the involvement of a supernatural Creator. Thus,
nature became a god creating itself. Louis Pasteur, whose work established
the Law of Biogenesis, provided the most succinct summation of this
anthropomorphic mysticism:

To
bring about spontaneous generation would be to create a germ. It
would be creating life; it would be to solve the problem of its
origin. It would mean to go from matter to life through conditions
of environment and of matter [lifeless material]. God as author
of life would then no longer be needed. Matter would replace Him.
God would need to be invoked only as author of the motions of the
universe. (Dubos 395)

Like
all of the false gods of antiquity, the voracity of this new deity
was soon demolished. The
Law of Biogenesis proved "spontaneous generation" impossible. However,
this fact did not stop certain "men of science" from chronically deifying
nature. For instance, Charles Darwin unconsciously revealed his idolatrous
impulses through statements like "natural selection picks out with
unerring skill the best varieties" (Hooykaas 18). Evident in such
statements is the idea that nature is sentient. After all, only a
sentient being holds discriminative tastes and, therefore, "picks
out" the recipients of its favor. Moreover,
such statements reveal that "nature" itself is a sovereign deity acting
as the ultimate arbiter of life and death. There is a name for such
a religious institution: idolatry. The apostle Paul observed that
the practice of idolatry involved the worship and service of "created
things rather than the Creator" (Romans 1:25). The apotheosizing of
nature, a "created thing," whether dignified by institutionalized
mysticism or so-called "science," is tantamount to idolatry.

The
religious institution of "nature worship" is certainly nothing new.
The ancient Mystery religion of Babylon and Egypt venerated an impersonal
force as "God." This force was an immanent energy that channeled itself
through all things--rocks, trees, oceans, clouds, animals, humans,
and, ultimately, the universe itself. As antiquity gave way to modernity,
this religious Weltanschauung eventually provided a conceptual segue
for the enthronement of scientific materialism. Father Clarence Kelly
observes that pantheism:

can
be used as a stage in bringing people from theism to atheistic materialism.
In religion, pantheism is most often expressed as Naturalism--"the
doctrine that religious truth is derived from nature, not revelation..."
(17)

Meanwhile,
the idea that non-living matter somehow willed itself to become living
matter is also derivative of older occult doctrines. The idea can
be found in the ancient Hebraic Kabbalah. Within this occult text,
readers will find the legend of the golem, an artificially created
man generated from lifeless matter. The late Isaac Bashevis Singer,
who studied the Kabbalah extensively, explained:

"the
golem is based on faith that dead matter is not really dead,
but can be brought to life. What are the computers and robots
of our time if not golems? The Talmud tells us of an interpreter
by the name of Rava who formed a man by this mysterious power. We
are living in an epoch of golem-making right now. The gap between
science and magic is becoming narrower." (Qutd. in Hoffman 115;
emphasis added)

According
to the evolutionary Weltanschauung, nature is "God" and man is its
artificially created golem. In short, evolutionism is religious in
character. In fact, Darwinian evolution constitutes merely another
link in an unbroken ideational chain that has traversed centuries.
W. Warren Wagar elaborates:

Nineteenth-and
early twentieth-century thought teems with time-bound emergent deities.
Scores of thinkers preached some sort of faith in what is potential
in time, in place of the traditional Christian and mystical faith
in a power outside of time. Hegel's Weltgeist, Comte's Humanite,
Spencer's organismic humanity inevitably improving itself by the
laws of evolution, Nietzsche's doctrine of superhumanity, the conception
of a finite God given currency by J.S. Mill, Hastings Rashdall,
and William James, the vitalism of Bergson and Shaw, the emergent
evolutionism of Samuel Alexander and Lloyd Morgan, the theories
of divine immanence in the liberal movement in Protestant theology,
and du Nouy's telefinalism--all are exhibits in evidence of the
influence chiefly of evolutionary thinking, both before and after
Darwin, in Western intellectual history. The
faith of progress itself--especially the idea of progress as built
into the evolutionary scheme of things-is in every way the psychological
equivalent of religion. (106-07)

There
is one invariant feature within this long ideational chain: the worship
of "progress" itself. In fact, the terms "evolution" and "progress"
can be used interchangeably. Expanding on the religion of progress
and its numerous permutations, Rama Coomaraswamy makes the following
observation:

In
point of fact, the idea of "progress," used in this sense, pre-dated
Darwin by decades if not by centuries. One finds it used during
the English Reformation where the "Recussants"--those who refused
to abandon the Catholic faith--were described as "backward," while
those who accepted the "established" state-enforced religion--were
"progressive." The concept was further developed during the so-called
"age of enlightenment" when people like Rousseau, Voltaire and Diderot
dreamed of creating a perfect society without God. Kant embraced
it in his "Idea of a Universal History on a Cosmopolitical Plan,"
a text in which he taught that history followed predetermined laws
and revealed what be called "a regular stream or tendency" which
demonstrated a "natural purpose" which would end in a "Universal
civil society." Spencer spoke of the "law of progress" and defined
evolution as "a change from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity
to a definite coherent heterogeneity through continuous differentiations
and integrations." He went on to teach that "the operation of evolution
is absolutely universal. . .Whether it be in the development of
the earth, in the development of life upon its surface, in the development
of society, of government, of manufactures, of commerce, of language,
of literature, science, art, this same advance from the simple to
the complex, through successive differentiations, holds uniformly.
. ." Hegel taught that humanity was driven ceaselessly upwards by
an all-powerful, all-rational "It", and that the path of the ascent
was an eternal, immutable, predestined, zigzag--his thesis and antithesis--always
resulting in a higher synthesis. Evolutionary theory developed as
a result of applying these ideas to biology. It provided a "scientific"
basis for man's belief in progress and found ready acceptance in
a world that sought to free itself from all divine sanction. From
the time of Darwin, progress and evolution have become almost interchangeable
terms that are mutually supportive and pervasive influences in our
lives. (No pagination)

This
religion was the edifying force behind the sociopolitical Utopian
radicalism of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century. It found
expression in the secular humanism of the Enlightenment and the violent
Jacobinism of revolutionary France. Eventually, it would birth the
Promethean faith, which James H. Billington describes as follows:

A
recurrent mythic theme for revolutionaries--early romantics, the
young Marx, the Russians of Lenin's time--was Prometheus, who stole
fire from the gods for the use of mankind. The Promethean faith
of revolutionaries resembled in many respects the general belief
that science would lead men out of darkness into light. (6;
emphasis added)

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Automatically,
astute readers will identify the Promethean faith's inherent scientism.
It was the Promethean revolutionary's religious conviction that science
would facilitate humanity's salvation by insuring the survival of
the species and guiding it along its alleged political evolution towards
a global society. Astute readers will also recognize this ideology's
mythical character. Historically, myths have played an integral role
in the maintenance of socialist totalitarian governments. For instance,
Nazism was premised upon the religious conviction that Germany's eugenical
regimentation would result in the reemergence of the mythical Aryan.
Likewise, communism was underpinned by the myth of a "worker's paradise"
and a "classless society." For
part four click below.

Phillip D. Collins
acted as the editor for The Hidden Face of Terrorism. He has also written
articles for Paranoia Magazine, MKzine, NewsWithViews,
B.I.P.E.D.: The Official Website of Darwinian Dissent, the ACL Report,
Namaste Magazine, and Conspiracy Archive. In 1999, he earned an Associate
degree of Arts and Science. In 2006, he earned a bachelors degree with
a major in communication studies and a minor in philosophy. During the
course of his seven-year college career, Phillip has studied philosophy,
religion, and classic literature.

He has recently
completed a newly expanded and revised edition of The
Ascendancy of the Scientific Dictatorship (ISBN 1-4196-3932-3), which
is available at Amazon.com.
He is also currently co-authoring a collection of short stories, poetry,
and prose entitled Expansive Thoughts. It will be available late Fall
of 2006.

This
religion was the edifying force behind the sociopolitical Utopian radicalism
of the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century. It found expression in
the secular humanism of the Enlightenment and the violent Jacobinism of
revolutionary France.